Virgin Oceanic, Oceangate Search for Florida Wrecks

The Marine Department of Florida has over 300 unidentified sonar hits that appear to be man made off their eastern coast. Recently Virgin Oceanic was invited to join Oceangate in diving their 5 man research sub Antipodes to recon survey “hits”. Florida, like California, does not have the money for this sort of research, but is interested in documenting what is off their coastline.

Diving in the Gulfstream is warm, and the seafloor is pretty white from coral and scoured nearly flat. With little natural hiding places the fish life is sporadic, with every little rock on the sea floor a mini-habitat. It’s the perfect place for creating reefs. The first target was not that exciting – a pile of concrete pilings pushed off of some barge eons ago. They had become a habitat, and the prevalence of the lion fish showed there, with dozens around the concrete rubble and almost nothing else left – they have eaten everything.

The second target was a probable 90′ long boat hull. The imagery looked like an upside down hull, 20′ wide, full keeled like a fishing boat. As the team got close though, it clearly was something far more exciting – a WWII fighter plane, upside down on the seafloor. With a 20′ drift sand dune in front of it and a 30′ long drift of sand behind it (down current), it had the profile of a boat hull. Seeing the wreck brought poignant thoughts – it was upside down, was the pilot still there? The leading edges showed crushing damage consistent with impacting the water, and many of the lower panels and the gear doors were blown out by the force of hitting the water. Somehow, this had violence and more gravity than the shipwrecks I have seen.

The team gathered a fair amount of typing information and photos – the obvious items were gull wings, main gear that rotated 90 degrees to retract, a retractable tail wheel and hook, stainless protected areas around the engine exhaust, two part flaps, and fabric on the control surfaces. The rest was obscured by growth and corrosion.

After getting back to shore, they confirmed that the wreck was a previously unknown WW II Navy Hellcat and turned the rest of the sleuthing over to the Navy historians. Their online records are not specific enough to sort out this specific accident; after they comb the archives the team expects to hear back the whole story. It will be best to hear the pilot was recovered at the time; if not, at least someone will know what happened.

Thanks to Stockton Rush, Guillermo Sohnlein, and Oceangate for the opportunity to be part of this expedition. Oceangate runs citizen-science dives on both coasts.

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Press Release, October 18, 2012